WatchSense Perfect For Fat-Fingered Smartwatch Owners

Clever European researchers, apparently tired of the usual ineffectual swiping and gefingerpoking das blinkenlights, have created a way to gesture your needs to your SmartWatch.

(WatchSense On and Above Skin input sensing)

The researchers have created a prototype called “WatchSense,” worn on the user’s arm. It captures the movements of the thumb and index finger on the back of the hand or in the space above it. It would also work with smartphones, smart TVs, and virtual-reality or augmented reality devices, explains Srinath Sridhar, a researcher in the Graphics, Vision and Video group at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics...

The new software, based on machine learning, recognizes the exact positions of the thumb and index finger in the 3D image from the depth sensor, says Sridhar, identifying specific fingers and dealing with the unevenness of the back of the hand and the fact that fingers can occlude each other when they are moved.

I'm not alone, fans of Douglas Adams have been waving their hands at devices ever since reading about gesture-controlled devices in his 1979 classic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive--you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope.
(Read more about Adams' gesture-controlled devices)